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The big difference, though, is that you can change the catcher's time to second base by changing catchers. Whereas you can't change the pitchers' times to the plate without changing their mechanics or getting a whole new staff.

In 2002, Kenny Rogers pitched 210 innings for the Rangers and opponents had a .324 on-base percentage. Ivan Rodriguez was the Rangers catcher for 100 games. Anyway opponents were 0-for-1 on basestealing attempts against Rogers that season. Plus one pickoff.

In short, when it comes to the timing variables within the running game and the reputation of the battery mates, our study refutes the conventional wisdom that the catcher’s arm is primarily responsible for caught stealing. While there are other lurking variables at play — like pitch location and handedness of the batter — surface value says that a pitcher’s quickness to the plate is a whole lot more influential than a catcher’s arm in the battery dynamic. Said lurking variables will be topics for future installments and will help us dive deeper into assigning credit to one of the two battery mates. When it comes down to the timing variable, the need for speed is on the pitcher’s side of the rubber.

I thought the most important point about catcher's arm is not % of base stealers caught (however much of that can be attributed to the pitcher), but, rather, is in "scaring" baserunners into not attempting a steal in the first place.

In that vein it is not throwing runners out that is the main asset of a catcher's arm; it's preventing stolen base attempts in the first place.

In that vein it is not throwing runners out that is the main asset of a catcher's arm; it's preventing stolen base attempts in the first place.

True but you'd say the same about pitchers. Note #2 before you ... one SB attempt and one pickoff against Rogers. Teams simply gave up running on him.

Similar for Terry Mulholland who was well-known for being tough to run on. In nearly 2600 career innings, teams were 35 for 85 against him. From age 30 on, they were 12 for 43 -- and he pitched for about 15 different teams over that span so it seems unlikely he always had good throwing Cs. That 35 for 85 is out of over 4100 SB opportunities per b-r (runner on 1st or 2nd with the next base open). He's also credited with 46 pick-offs -- that's more pickoffs than SBs given up. One season he had an incredible 15 pickoffs. 15 pickoffs and 2 for 7 in SBs -- I wouldn't have taken a single step off of 1B if he was pitching.

I don't have a clue but I'm guessing Mulholland might well have been the best ever at it so he's an extreme example. But Rueter is close, maybe better. 34 for 99 in steals, 30 pickoffs in 3000 SBOs. But of his CS, apparently 25 came after being picked off (b-r is kinda amazing) while Mulholland had only 7. Crikey.

Glavine wasn't nearly so good but still just a 57% SB rate in about 400 attempts in 6650 SBOs with 39 PO and 36 PCS.

So league average was 69% for Glavine's career, he was at 57%, Mulholland was at 40% and Rueter at 34%. Those are pretty massive differences. In contrast, Pudge threw out 46% of basestealers compared to a league average of 30%, slightly bigger than the difference between Glavine and league average. Pudge's best year was 60% thrown out, similar to Mulholland's career average. Bench checks in with a 43% CS rate, same as Glavine, but against a 35% league average. His best years didn't reach Mullholland's career average.

Does the effect they claim still exist if you remove the lefties?

Good question. We could really use some people around here less lazy than me.

But no RHP springs to mind as a recognized great in this area. P-I to the rescue so RHP with 1000 IP in the expansion era -- Chris Carpenter leads the way at 38%, Langford at 39%, Jim Perry at 40, Dave Rozema at 44, Steve Blass at 45. C Zambrano was at 51% (interesting), Garland at 52 and Greinke at 53. Gaylord completes the brother combo at a solid 53%.

Blass with 19 POs, McCaskill with 21, Zambrano with 16 but that's nothing compared to some of the leaders: P Niekro 51 (well, they had to be running every time), Drysdale 44, the great Armando Reynoso with 43, the even greater Jesse Jefferson with 42. Top current guys are Shields 26, Verlander 22 and Dickey 22.

I would hope that the CW is that it's a combination of factors: pitcher's motion, including deceptiveness and release time; is the pitcher RH or LH; catcher's release time; catcher's arm strength; catcher's accuracy. But clearly I'd think the first of these is the most important.

This mentioning of Mulholland and his pickoff prowess reminds me that apparently, Pud Galvin from the 19th century was supposed to have a great pickoff move. No point in mentioning it, just thought someone might enjoy looking up Pud Galvin.

In 2002, Kenny Rogers pitched 210 innings for the Rangers and opponents had a .324 on-base percentage. Ivan Rodriguez was the Rangers catcher for 100 games. Anyway opponents were 0-for-1 on basestealing attempts against Rogers that season. Plus one pickoff.

#12 - I too am really impressed. About a decade ago, after reading too many Neyer and Prospectus articles that I felt I could have written myself, I basically stopped reading stathead blogs. I started reading Fangraphs a year ago, now I'm hooked - they create a ton of fresh and totally worthwhile content.

I thought the most important point about catcher's arm is not % of base stealers caught (however much of that can be attributed to the pitcher), but, rather, is in "scaring" baserunners into not attempting a steal in the first place.

In that vein it is not throwing runners out that is the main asset of a catcher's arm; it's preventing stolen base attempts in the first place.

Say you've got two catchers: Johnny Supergun and Willy Ragarm. In a given season, Johnny's arm is so effective that no one tries to steal on him. He guns down 4 of the 5 baserunners who try to steal, and teams subsequently say #### it and anchor their guy on first.

Willy, on the other hand, is a personal Green Light. Everyone runs on him, and he cuts down runners at a 34 percent clip.

Now, say the league they participate in has a SB breakeven point of 70 percent. How many stolen base attempts would it take for Willy's throwing to be more valuable than Johnny's?

And this leads to the larger question: what value does a strong arm have if no one tests it? If teams have a catcher with a cannon that almost no one tries to run against, say prime Ivan Rodriguez or Bench, are they properly leveraging this asset, or are there things they could be doing to make it more valuable. The one that jumps to mind is possibly playing your first baseman slightly off the bag, rather than holding the runner directly.* This would give your first baseman slightly better range, while enticing more runners to try to steal. If you can bump up the SBA, but not so much that the success rate exceeds the breakeven point, would this be a better deployment of resources? Or are there benefits to thoroughly shutting down the running game that don't show up in the SB/CS numbers but that nonetheless aid a team's cause.

* Keeping in mind that whatever tactics you deploy, you'd want to deploy them strategically. You might play things different given a particular SB threat, or in a situation where the base is more critical.

I remember looking at a game in which Piazza caught and the Rockies stole 10 bases on him that day. But oddly enough for some reason after the 5th inning the Rockies only attempted to steal once more despite having 12 baserunners in the last 4 innings. So through 5 innings the Rockies had 12 baserunners and stole a base 9 times while in the last 4 innings they had 12 baserunners and stole only once. Piazza was the catcher the entire game so why the sudden and abrupt change in stealing bases? Hideo Nomo left the game after the 5th inning. Hideo Nomo was horrible at getting the ball quickly to home and consequently tons of people ran on him regardless of who was behind the plate.

#3 (and others) We've been discussing this for quite some time. STATS did a study that showed that the pitcher was about twice as important as the catcher in determining stolen base percentage. (sadly the study did not address stolen base frequency)]

Chris Dial suggested that it's a good general rule but probably isn't true at the extremes. The catcher almost doesn't matter with Mulholland on the mound while only the very best pitchers can do enough to help (say) a late career Mike Piazza.

From my youth there was one right handed pitcher who was noted as being tough to steal on(at least by the Philly announcers). Art Mahaffey. Well, at least a good pick off move. (He was like a drunk falling off a bar stool. You didn't know which way he was going.)

#18 Checking, his rep appears to be grounded in reality. Career CS% of 49% (quite consistent year to year) compared to the 38% average while he was in the league.

On the other hand, Clay Dalrymple was often his catcher. Dalrymple had a good defensive rep and it's backed up by the stats. Dalrymple's career CS% was also 49%. The other catchers for the Phillies weren't as quite good against the running game as Dalrymple, but the difference wasn't huge (Typically 4-5% worse than Dalrymple)